Rajendra K Pachauri: Peace Nobel for green warrior

India had its place at the high table at Oslo's City Hall this year, where global warming's celebrity face Al Gore and UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC)'s chair Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri jointly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007.

India had its place at the high table at Oslo's City Hall this year, where global warming's celebrity face Al Gore and UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC)'s chair Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri jointly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007. The prize was awarded "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".

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If Al Gore lends glamour to the crusade, Pachauri provides the scientific ammunition. The IPCC has produced four reports with irrefutable data to bring the threat of global warming to our doorsteps. As the chairman of the IPCC since April 2002, he oversees the work of scientists from over 100 countries. Based on their research, he warns that if global warming issues are not addressed urgently, developing nations will bear the brunt because they do not have the resources to deal with disasters like flash floods and droughts brought on by climatic anomalies.

Pachauri has headed The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) since 1981, first as director and since April 2001 as director-general.